


what happens when you sneeze?

by fakelamb



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: An Ode to David's Septum Ring, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Piercings, Trans David, soft tender boys being soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-22 19:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18533968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakelamb/pseuds/fakelamb
Summary: Matteo likes David's nose ring. He always liked it. Unfortunately, a person's nostrils don't make for the most romantic place to stare.(aka my 'matteo loves david's septum and david is a morosexual' post turned into a fic)





	1. sunday, 4:21pm

It's 4:21pm and they're still in bed. Matteo is sprawled on his back with David's chin propped against his chest. There's an empty pizza box on the floor and a laptop with the credits for Into The Spiderverse beside them. With a little more shuffling, it's likely to slide right off the mattress, but that's a problem for future Matteo.

Sometimes, this is cause for concern - when Matteo stays in bed all day and the maximum amount of walking he accomplishes is to and from the front door. Today isn't. Today is quiet and peaceful. It's him and it's David and it's beautiful and perfect and easy.

He's been rambling about the animation style and soundtrack of the movie for a good 10 minutes now, and Matteo should be used to this by now, but with the way David's eyes light up, with the way he smiles so big you can hear it seep into his voice, with the way he starts to talk with his hands when he really gets into it, _god_. It never gets old and each time it feels like a gift to witness. And even if Matteo doesn't get it, he keeps listening, because he wants to get it. Every time for as long as the universe lets him. 

David's chin digs into Matteo's ribs and it doesn't matter. 

"And y'know how Marvel used to use that opening credits sequence with the quick flipping of coming book pages?" David continues, "The fact that they scrapped that for all those movie scenes is bullshit, by the way, but that's a rant for a different day. So! By lowering the frame rate, you get a really similar effect of like, someone making a little stop-motion out of drawings on a stack of sticky notes or something."

"Like the cheese toast one you made last week?" Matteo asks. 

David beams. "Yeah, like that." He drops his gaze, cheeks going ruddy - or more so than they usually are. "It actually embraces the fact that it's based off of a comic book, right? Pays homage to the source material in both really obvious and really subtle ways. It's smart. The whole thing is really very carefully done."

Matteo keeps staring, whereas David zones out a little, his eyes drifting to the wall. He's still talking, and then he starts fiddling with his nose ring, flicking it back and forth. 

"Did it hurt?" Matteo interrupts. 

"Huh?"

"The piercing... Did it hurt?"

David gives him a blank stare. "No, love. It felt like getting kissed by angels in my nostril."

"Oh fuck off!" Matteo picks up a pillow and slams it over the top of David's head, effectively trapping him against Matteo's chest. They wrestle, until David decides he'll play dirty and goes straight for Matteo's ribs. There's a high pitched squeal, followed by laughter, followed by the thud of a laptop hitting the floor. They both freeze.

"It'll be fine, right?" Matteo tries, tilting his chin up for a kiss. 

David leans in, cradling Matteo's jaw in both hands, and Matteo feels like he's something important. He feels a tiny prick of cold metal against his cheek, and is reminded of his mission. 

"I mean it though," he says, pulling away, "Tell me about it." He flicks his nose against David's. "How long ago did you get it done? What made you want it?"

"I was like, sixteen? I think?" David starts. "I got it cause I thought they were cool. Made me look kinda badass, y'know? Get a load of that guy - he pays people to stab him." 

Matteo snorts. 

"Shut up! You don't have anything pierced, right?" David tilts Matteo's head to get a better look at his ears - boring, empty, entirely uninjured. Matteo confirms with a hum. 

"Ok, so for the septum," he continues, fiddling with his nose ring again. "They like, clamp the flesh down, which feels like a really hard pinch. and then you just kinda sit there for a moment with these metal tong-scissor things hanging from your nose while the piercer pulls out a needle and shows you the needle to make sure it's new, as if you give a shit at that point-"

Matteo huffs out a laugh and David smiles at him again. 

"and the thing about piercing needles is that they're hollow, so it's less like getting stabbed and more like getting hole-punched."

Matteo's eyes go wide. 

"Yeah. That's what I thought. It's not fun but also not the worst. I knew this guy that got his conch pierced - that's here," David says, hooking a finger into the hollow of Matteo's ear, "and that part of your ear is all cartilage and gets very little blood flow so it heals really slowly and hurts for a long time. He didn't sleep the night he got it. And then for some reason got like, 12 more piercings after that one." 

"Woah," Matteo breathed. His boyfriend is so smart. "I guess you really are a badass who paid someone to stab him," he says with a peck on the cheek. "Because obviously, stabbing yourself once a week wasn't enough." He pecks the other. Symmetry is important.

"Fuck yeah," David says, "my plan worked."

Matteo pulls him in for another kiss.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. hope that was fun. 
> 
> the septum ring post in question can be found [here](https://isalesbiankeijser.tumblr.com/post/184033223386/i-need-a-davenzi-cliptext-convosomething-were) and while you're at it feel free to follow me on tumblr [@isalesbiankeijser](https://isalesbiankeijser.tumblr.com) and jump into my ask box and Yell.


	2. tuesday, 12:31pm

Ever since David started talking about the piercing, Matteo has come up with more and more questions about it. He started a note on his phone with a list and everything, and it takes a lot to push Matteo into making a _list_. Half the questions are on the same level of stupidity as 'did it hurt?' and Matteo needs to plan this shit, okay, because if he asks too many of the stupid ones in succession, it could very well be the final straw for David and he would break up with Matteo because he doesn't understand how you get the ring _in_ \- it's a circle, circles don't have openings, so _how_ \- and his curiosity is strong but not strong enough to kill the cat of their relationship.

The metaphor wasn't much to begin with but damn, it was disintegrating fast.

They're on the way home from a grocery trip, sitting on the bus in silence, sharing headphones and listening to a playlist he and David made together. They took turns and picked every other song. Right now, David's pick is playing. 'It's Only a Paper Moon' by Ella Fitzgerald. David is still weirdly shy about liking jazz - he says it ruins the punk aesthetic - and Matteo thinks it's adorable.

Matteo breathes in and bites the bullet.

"David?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you like, notice the nose ring? Can you feel it all the time?" Matteo tries.

David tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"Cause when it's winter the ring gets cold and I notice every single time you kiss me, which naturally leads me to wonder if my boyfriend's nose is cold all the time because he's so hellbent on maintaining his aesthetic," Matteo explains.

There's a flash of concern in David's eyes. "Does it bother you? You should've said so earlier you know I can just take it out-"

"No, David, it's fine. I was just curious."

"I don't feel it all the time, no. If I focus on it, sure. But mostly it's just kinda... there."

"What about when you sneeze?"

David does a double-take. "What about it?"

"Like," Matteo's hands gesture in a way that adds little understanding and says, "Does it tickle?"

David stares at him. And keeps staring. His eyes go warm and bright in a way that makes Matteo squirm because he will never be used to being looked at like _that_ \- like he's loved. It's just eye contact and somehow it's too much.

"You dipshit," David sighs, eyes sliding shut. The sign develops into a chuckle. "You're so stupid, oh my god."

"Hey!"

David's laughter grows louder.

"This is a serious question!" Matteo half-shouts, only to dissolve into giggles himself.

They look each other in the eye as David curls up in his seat with laughter, arms holding his stomach.

"It wasn't even that funny, I just wasn't expecting it," David muses, "Um, uh. Yeah. It-" he snorts "It does _not_ tickle when I sneeze."

"So do you just not notice it at all?" Matteo asks.

"I mean, if I change the jewelry or if I'm fidgetting with it, then I definitely feel it."

"I-" Matteo pauses, "I don't think I've ever seen you wear anything other than that silver ring, though."

"I have a different one, it's a horseshoe and literally every time I move it ends up crooked so I never wear it."

"What's a horseshoe?" Matteo asks.

David stares up and shakes his head in amusement. "I'll show you when we get home."


	3. tuesday, 1:17pm

"Okay, here we go," David announces. He enters the room and strikes a pose, presenting his nose with jazz hands.

The silver ring is now a matte black curl of a stud, with two round ball-bearings. The ring itself looks a little bigger than the one David usually wears. Matteo reaches out to flick it.

"Hey!" David swats his hand away, "I literally just told you I never wear this because if I move it'll go crooked and you decide 'hey let's make it crooked!' Thanks man, really appreciate it."

"It's cute," Matteo says. David's eyes drop to the floor. He's always liked David's nose ring. Unfortunately, a person's nostrils don't make for the most romantic place to stare. Not that it's stopping him. "This looks more like your taste. More angsty," he adds.

"But harder to manage," David responds.

"If this was a movie, somewhere within this conversation is a symbol you'd go crazy analyzing," Matteo muses, stepping into David's space and grabbing both of his hands. David kisses him, slow, sweet, weaving their fingers together.

"I'll make a movie about us one day, then," David responds.

"You'd make a movie and then write your own film analysis?" Matteo grins.

"Of course I would," David sticks out his chin, embodying the pride of a peacock to the best of his capacity, before coming to rest his forehead against Matteo's. "Don't you know me?"

He did, he knew, and he _loved_ knowing. Every little thing, every pointless nugget of information that David offered up to him, every second spent together. David and his music taste and his voice and his smile and his nose ring and the fact that he was so adamant about the symmetry of literally the only piece of jewelry he wore. The two of them started to sway to non-existent music. Out Like a Light by The Honeysticks popped into his head - another song David showed him. Matteo wondered what song was in David's head.

"Hey butterflies!" Hans sticks his head into the room. Matteo spun on his heels to face him. "I'm making dinner and I'm taking votes - lasagna or ravioli?"

David says "lasagna" at the exact same time as Matteo says "ravioli." David scoffs and Matteo gives him the stink eye. _Traitor_.

"Oohhh, trouble in paradise!" Hans teases. "Ok, I'll consult the rest of the voters. Democracy and all that, right?"

"Let us know if you need any help, yeah?" David offers. He's fiddling with his nose ring again.

"Thanks, sweetheart!" Hans calls out, already en route to Linn's room.

Matteo kicks the door closed and turns back to David, getting into his space.

_Wait._

Matteo looks at David's nose, then his hands, checking them diligently, turning them over in his own.

"Did you just take your septum ring out?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I didn't."

"Am I hallucinating then?" Matteo presses, "Cause it's not in your nose. Where did he go?"

"I just tucked it in." David says. He tilts his head back. "See?"

And sure enough, there's the black horseshoe, inside David's nose.

"Ohhhhhh," Matteo responds, with far more amazement than necessary.

David chuckles. "It's like you don't have object permanence, god. Is that enough time to stare up my nostrils? Can I put my head back down?"

"Hmmm," Matteo started, "I dunno, maybe just a bit longer? Your nostrils are pretty hot, after all."

David's head snaps back down. "I've decided I'm going to exit by jumping out of that window right there," he says, pointing. Matteo laughs, pulling David into a hug before he can get too far. "Matteo Florenzi, you're terrible and not funny."

"Sure, whatever you say."


	4. friday 8:44am

Matteo is awake and trying to deal with a series of impossible things, the first of which was being awake before 10 in the morning and feeling _rested_. The second was being awake before David, and the third? David was sick.

It's nothing bad, just a common cold, enough to slow David down and more than enough to piss him off. The two of them agreed that he could only run twice a week and he pouted for a minute straight.

Matteo reaches for his phone, trying not to jostle his boyfriend, who is pressed to his side down to their toes, enveloping him in warmth, his breath ever-so-lightly tickling Matteo's neck. He scrolls through Instagram while absentmindedly tracing circles over David's back and along his shoulder.

His feed is flooded with photos from Hanna, Mia, Amira, and Sam of the girls’ Europe tour. They’re in Marbella, which is sunnier now than Berlin is in the peak of summer. There will probably be a party in the flatshare when they get back. Once upon a time, that thought would’ve made him cringe, look for ways to cement the door to his room shut. Matteo opens WhatsApp to text Hanna, asking when they’re coming back. He thinks about what they should cook.

David shuffles in his sleep, trying to move closer to Matteo - the fourth impossible thing of the morning - and elbows him in the process.

Matteo tries to be annoyed and fails. Realistically, David could deck him and he’d respond with ‘I love you.’ Despite that, he is still a little shit, so he shuffles down the mattress, putting himself at eye level with David, and reaches for David’s septum ring.

And _wiggles_ it.

David sneezes himself awake, jolting up and throwing himself over Matteo as he reaches for the box of tissues on the nightstand. He sneezes twice, and then three times, then five, then seven, all the while balancing himself on his forearm, pressed against Matteo’s chest. He reminds Matteo of a cat, and how they walk over you with the full knowledge and complete disregard of the fact that you experience pain.

As soon as his sneezing fit is done, David stares Matteo down and announces, “I wanna break up.”

Matteo laughs loud, as loud as his lungs allow under David’s weight. “You sure?”

“Yep. This was fun but I’m done. What paperwork do I have to fill out?”

“There’s like, 12 forms,” Matteo offers, “you can only submit it between the hours of 3 and 5 am on weekdays,” he watches David roll his eyes, completely and shamelessly endeared, and can’t help as the laughter creeps into his voice “and it’ll take like, at least a year to process.”

“That sounds like a hassle,” David comments.

“Yeah,” Matteo says, “might as well stay together, y’know? Sounds like a lot less work.”

David chuckles and flops down at Matteo’s side. “Good morning.”

“Hi.” Matteo pecks David’s temple.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, accurate, but-”

“If you say some shit like ‘but I’m your asshole’ I swear to _god_ Matteo-”

Matteo lifts his hands up in surrender, “I was gonna say you’re an asshole too.”

David raises a brow.

“You elbowed me in your sleep,” Matteo explains.

“Fuck,” David says with a sniffle. “Sorry, babe.” He pulls the blanket up to his chin, sneezes again, and groans in frustration. He looks miserable and delirious and like he hates being alive and Matteo finds it adorable. God, he’s really gone for this boy, isn’t he?

“I’ll make tea,” he says, extracting himself from the blankets.

“Can I have peppermint?” David mumbles.

“Mr. Schreibner,” Matteo scolds, “You’re on a week-long lemon-ginger chamomile lockdown.”

“It’s gross though,” David whines. “One cup of peppermint, okay? Then I’ll go back to the hell juice.”

“Okay.”

He’s back in the room a couple of minutes later, and David is clinging to consciousness with all the strength he can muster. Matteo puts the teacup by the tissue box and walks over to the open shelf at their wall, one cubicle filled with books, the next with records - a collection that had grown exponentially in the past six months, the next with miscellaneous trinkets David had collected since the day of their first kiss.

“David?” he calls out, not turning to face the bed.

“Yeah?”

Four of the cubicles have records. “Pick a number from one to four,” Matteo says.

“Three,” David replies.

Middle-right. Matteo counts the records in it as quick as he can.

“Now a number from 1 to 37,” he continues.

“Twenty,” David tells him. Of course, he’d go for the middle, the bastard. Matteo throws him an unamused look over his shoulder.

He makes a show of counting the records carefully, mouthing ‘nine, ten, eleven’ as he goes along. David giggles in the background.

Record twenty is the Alvvays self-titled album. Matteo presents it to David, who responds with a soft, “Nice.”

After setting it up, Matteo dances across the room to ‘Adult Diversion,’ hoping that all the head-bobbing David doing isn’t making him too dizzy.

As soon as Matteo gets one knee on the bed, David asks “Can you do me a favour?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

There’s some shuffling in David’s burrito blanket and two hands emerge to fiddle with his nose. He then presents his septum silver ring to Matteo. “Can you soak this in a cup of hot water with like, a teaspoon of salt?” he asks.

_How the fuck did he take it out._

Matteo takes the ring, nodding. He brings it close and notices two little ridges in the metal. He pulls on the shorter panel, and it opens. He clicks it shut, and then pops it open, and then clicks it shut, and then pops it open, and then one more time, for good luck.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Matteo says.

“Matteo?”

David already sounds like he’s on the edge of laughter.

“I didn’t know how you got it in,” Matteo mutters, “the ring, I mean. I didn’t know it opened-” he demonstrates again “like that.”

David snorts, which causes him to sneeze. “How did you think it worked?”

“You got pierced with it and then were stuck with it for life, I don’t know!”

David laughs, burying himself deeper in the blanket. “That doesn’t even make sense. I can’t deal with you right now.”

“Oh fuck you,” Matteo says, “Y’know what, maybe I will actually file in that breakup paperwork. After taking care of you for the past couple days I’ve developed some endurance.”

“You could try,” David starts, “But you can only submit it between 4:00 and 4:01 pm on Tuesdays, and processing time is at least a decade.”

“I guess I’m stuck with you forever, then, right?” Matteo muses, getting up to go to the kitchen and give David’s septum ring its TLC.

“Yeah,” David sighs, “Something like that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the music mentioned can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/album/4PrBMzWzzoMOwm55Bfo3dt?si=VaPX0hX8SPGRumGyrK_TJw) (spotify link) - party police is an especially good song
> 
> thank you so much for reading! while this is technically the fic done, i do have a rough idea for another final chapter. let me know if y'all are interested. reminder that you can find me on tumblr [@isalesbiankeijser](https://isalesbiankeijser.tumblr.com), bring me your hcs, other fic prompts, or general davenzi love.


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